Since the beginning of times children are really mean and the best witnesses to this are the animals and other children. The animals are not as vindictive as humans. If a dog ends up biting a kid after hours of eye poking or tail pulling is pure instinct and not revenge. Humans in other hand prefer many times to chicken in front of older mean kids and get their revenge with younger kids. That way bullying goes around generation after generation. Sometimes physically others psychologically. Some of those can leave marks for all our lives and kids don’t know better. I’m planning to have a child and it makes me think about this situation. I’m not sure what is worst. If my kid bully or gets bullied. When i was younger i always thought mean kids are the result of a broken home but now i see many kids that are totally unbalanced and apparently they live in happy families. Maybe too happy. Some say the lack of boundaries can result in things like this. The lady that works with my wife is four. He came to my place twice. I remember the first really well. The kid was kicking the walls for most of his half a hour visit and he would kick and look to us. The mom would ask him to spot and right after she did speak he started kicking again. My wife got my collection “Nemo” and gave it to him. He looked really menacing for about two minutes straight in our eyes and threw the doll aiming my wife’s head. He didn’t miss. Than the lady got ashamed and decided the visit was over but she never complained or reprehended he kid. The kid left the house screaming “stupid”. Well. I know the parents and they do everything for the kid and i heard the kid hurt really bad a younger kid at school. He got suspended and all. The mom was really upset because he got suspended as he was a amazing boy and if he did something i was because he had reasons to it. I don’t need to comment that the dog in this family’s house was “very agressive” and they have to give the dog away because it was trying to “hurt” the kid. That makes me think about my beliefs. I think nobody bullied this kid. He had not enough time for that. He didn’t live in a destroyed home so what about “Tabula rasa”?? Are people not supposed to be essentially good and society would makes us less pure?? Is it the other way around??? I don’t know. Just what i know is that kids are smart enough to know better and even smart enough to play dumb whenever that benefits them. And don’t get me wrong. I love kids. That’s just fruit of observation.

From what I’ve been told by local teachers here in the states, the kids with Asbergers, a syndrome on the autism spectrum, are targeted by bullies. They then do something unpredictable. Personally, I think it’s nonsense and blaming bullies’ victims.

A better idea would be to tell the bullies what they told us when we were kids. It’s pretty simple. Be nice.

Interesting to see how dubious are some opinions over these matters. Maybe someday the victim will be the guilty part. After all if they were not victim material the guilty would not exist… Shame on the victims…

Yeah, there is no reason to bully anyone. I really believe that while some kids that bully are the products of bad homes, those who aren’t are the products of bad parenting. This is a bold statement, but I have always been a strong believer that parents need to be firm with their kids and have the utmost responsibility for ensuring that ‘unbalanced’ kids somehow balance themselves out.

I believe that balance is the answer. I just sometimes get worried when i see some cases that don’t follow the profile. They are a few so they will make no big difference but the fact is that they are the paradigms. When i see someone that don’t fit any description you just gave here and yet is mean and violent it makes me wonder how does that happen.

I think Robin makes a good point. Personally, I was victimized by bullies pretty badly. The broken cartiledge in my nose can still be seen by boys who hit me with their backpacks after school. Back then I cried about it but I never felt a sense of need for revenge.

Then there were no school shootings or other violence by victims of bullies. Perhaps the violence doesn’t come entirely from being a victim of bullying. I can’t think so since I never felt violent over being treated violently by bullies. We do need to look at what is different and why. Over twenty years ago I was never afraid at school. Now school workers and kids are afraid.

Maybe people at schools are not more afraid from bullying now then they ever were but other things are even more scaring than bullying at least here in Brazil. With drugs going on in public schools sometimes young kids younger than twelve are involved in real crime and even have guns. That’s scary!!

Oye! Seriously? It saddens me deeply. In one of my local communities in the U.S. a 12 year old allegedly killed his parents and attempted to kill his his 2 young siblings (it’s a national new item). I do not understand. But we as a society must understand. Even if we attempt to deny, When I was 12 we had no thoughts such as these. None of our friends did either. I strongly feel we need to consider these type of events. There is something not right. Just my opinion.

I could not agree more… Here one event was like that last year. Parents threw a 3 years old girl from the window of the apartment. The mother was jealous of the girl with the father and hurt her really bad. Then the father helped her to throw the kid. There was a net to prevent accidents. They cutted the net. There were stains of blood in it. Everyone was shoked. Those are paradigms and are important to pay lots of attention. It’s hard to understand how can that be part of human essence.

Screw all that, blaming autism and various so called “syndromes” and intellectualising the bullies and reasons for bullying. So typical in our kid-glove society! The reason the nutface kid kicking your wall and so many others like him are crazy asses is down to the source- the parent(s). You said yourself she never gave out to him or told him what’s what in spite of his rubbish behaviour, it’s the same all over. THe parents are just absent. They can’t handle their demon offspring. And the reason is these people have mistaken material well-being as requisite for a strong foundation in life. But instead of taking responsibility and becoming really involved and connected with their children, they blame everyone and everything else. There was nothing to play with in your house so he kicked the wall. We had to get rid of the dog for being aggressive to our kid, all he was doing was poking him the face but then he bit him shock horror!! etc etc. Always making excuses. And when there are no boundaries, there are no limits to where the behaviour will go.

Wow!!! You are inspired today!!! lol … Let’s kick these demon offspring!! …Now seriously…i’m not sure it’s all about the parents. A lot is but there’s something else sometimes. That’s what i’m trying to spot here. If you all feel the same way. Is anyone just mean since the beginning??

hmmm…nature versus nurture.
I think how we are nurtured in our earlier years has the greatest impact on us…and who has the responsibility for delivery this impact?

How can someone be mean from the beginning when they only have the capacity for instinct? Wahh they want milk, wahh they want their nappy changed. They aren’t lying there thinking “mom, if you don’t feed me right now I will make your life a living hell.” Being mean is a learnt behaviour. Think of a little newborn child. There are no “Damiens.” They don’t know any better. But they will learn over time. From lame parents.

Great point! But i still enjoy the doubt about our nature… as everything has two sides in this universe it looks to me a lot like human hypocrisy to believe we have no negative sides in us and all is based in causality…

hmmm….ok good point…because I generally do believe in the “two sides” thing too. darn, now I don’t even believe in what I wrote. It’s just that babies are so tiny and bald! How can anything spiteful be going on in their squashy heads?